Piketty on Ireland

Not surprisingly, he wants an end to Ireland’s ‘dumping fiscal’. He makes another, more neutral point: if such an thing were to come about, it would be easier for Ireland if it were ended everywhere in Europe simultaneously.

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4 replies on “Piketty on Ireland”

The French deal with capital/jobs flight to Eastern Europe by ordering their corporations to bring the jobs home from there (see Renault). It’s harder to tell multinationals to do this in the Irish context.

Please also note that Piketty is currently calling for a top tax band of 80%, not on the basis of it being able to generate additional income, but purely to discourage top execs from paying themselves too much. I’m all for a progressive tax system, but Piketty seems to be far far left of what most people consider to be reasonable. His arguments are more moral and political-based than economic.

Note though that the 80% rate is only proposed to kick in above €2million – Picketty explicitly says that such a rate applied to more than a very small percentage of the population would probably be disastrous. And given that the top marginal rate in the US only came below 70% in 1980, it would appear that every postwar president until Reagan was “far far left of what most people [today] consider to be reasonable”.